Making the old new ... again

In response to my earlier post on Will Okun's approach to the classics, regular reader and commenter SA makes the following observation: One might ask whether we read classic literature in order to affirm specific truths of some kind, or to discover something? If the former, it would make a great deal more sense to offer students some texts which contain the same truths as older texts but do so in language that is intelligible to them. I agree with SA's point that if the task is mere affirmation (i.e., we're trying to teach life lessons here), then the old text isn't necessarily necessary. I wonder though, in response to this point, if discovery and affirmation aren't two sides of the same coin, particularly when teaching older texts.

She continues with a nice turn of phrase: Perhaps, for those teachers finding sleeping students a problem, encouraging students to approach these supposedly "irrelevant" texts more like a sleuth than a slave would keep some students awake in class.

I like the "sleuth" idea a good deal, and find that when we're hunting and happen upon something it's pretty good. I'm trying this out in the first part of my introductory class by re-configuring the way we look at Descartes and Hume. Previously I taught Descartes and Hume in the context of epistemology only, but this semester I'm using a "span" approach to these thinkers, with the aim of talking about the connections between worldview, knowledge, God, and structure.

For example, I'm beginning with Part II of Descartes' Discourse on Method (1637) to try and divine the approach he'll take to the investigations in the Meditations (1641-42). The idea here is that we are able to understand - from the Discourse - more directly the kinds of values that Descartes thinks are important when it comes to the discovery of knowledge. Then we will examine the Meditations (1-3, 6) to see how well his stated values are honored. We'll look at portions of Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) - especially sections 2-7 - and see which values Hume emphasizes with respect to knowledge, and see how they emerge in Parts II and V of the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (published posthumously in 1779), which is Hume's thoroughgoing attack on monotheism and Natural Theology.

The aim here is for students to see the texts in three ways: first, in terms of philosophical content - these texts form classic answers to the questions "What can we know?" and "What can we know about the existence of God?" Second, they should see and evaluate these texts in terms of their consistency by considering structural questions - are the stated approaches and positions of the earlier works honored and consistently expressed in the later work? Third, they must consider the models and structures offered by Descartes and Hume in terms of their own body of knowledge - what do they value when it comes to epistemological matters? This approach to the text should model the discovery - affirmation continuum that SA discusses above.

This disrupts the order of the textbook I'm using, but that doesn't bother me too much. It seems like at the beginning of every semester I'm thinking of new ways to approach the problem of teaching equivalent classics in my discipline. This is a funny thing, because my teaching (and probably life) mentor has been teaching literature for 35 years, and he starts over every time. I wonder if this problem changes when one is a minister/pastor. Probably not, but I'd be interested to find out.

Making the old new (?)

This morning I found a well-timed little reflection in the NYT. Will Okun (guest-blogging for Nicholas Kristof in the Times) gives an "on the ground" perspective of the usefulness of teaching classics in the urban high school classroom. I'd recommend reading the post, but I'll comment on a couple of points he makes. Here's his opening salvo:

Of course, it is my responsibility as a teacher to engage the students in these classics so they can understand, analyze and appreciate the writings of our greatest thinkers. But I cannot. I have tried strategy after strategy, sought advice upon advice, and still, I am unable to spark sustainable interest in the vast majority of my students. Few students do the readings and even fewer seriously consider the ideas or themes presented in these writings. The class discussions are disgracefully unanimated and the student essays are dull, tedious and impersonal. For most students in my class, the months dedicated to the canons of Western literature are a dreadful waste of time. And yes, I know, this failure is mostly my fault.

Okun continues by explaining that his students are moved by authors that speak more directly to their situation, which by all accounts is determined by ethnicity and economic standing - instead of, say, Hardy (sorry AV) they are motivated by Wright or Angelou. He seems to salvage the class discussions and sleeping students with authors generally marginalized by the canon (although he doesn't say how he makes this transformation ... a miracle!). He all but leaves the classics to the "miracle workers" and runs by a mantra of "if it doesn't motivate student discussion, then why are we teaching it?"

Okun concludes:

The books I hope will foster the students’ love of reading are well written, intelligent, thought-provoking and clearly relevant. If these books produce more response, thought, engagement, learning and other academic results from the students, shouldn’t these writings form the backbone of my literature class? Considering my abilities as a teacher and the personal and academic interests of my students, I believe I am better serving the present and future needs of my students by offering more accessible readings that will hopefully ignite a lifelong passion for reading. After all, isn’t it better to have read and learned, than never to have read at all?

I can sympathize with Okun here, because - believe it or not - making texts relevant to students is something that rings true with every philosophy teacher out there, unless they don't care.

I mean, how do you make epistemology interesting and accessible to the freshman intro student without sticking Descartes in the stove, or giving some discussion about Hume's turban, penchant for backgammon, Kant's precise 3:00 walk, etc. etc.? This may sound like a stupid lesson, but it's one I learned early on last semester - these little trifles are good for a chuckle, but they don't make philosophy any more accessible, and they don't make it any more substantively interesting, either (although we may all pause to wonder in amazement that these trifles remain really important to me).

Also, a lot of what's out there and "relevant" (at least by Okun's lights) in my discipline is potentially too difficult to hand to the introductory student without the requisite background. Part of what makes Franz Fanon or Simone deBeauvoir interesting is the context they're reacting against - to appropriate philosophy for your group or your gender is to say hey, Descartes was wrong and here's where he falls short. I don't get this sense of context from Okun, and missing context is a big problem when it comes to teaching out of books. I guess what I'm puzzled by is Okun's insistence that all one can do is read the classics and teach only old lessons from them. Isn't the fundamental challenge of teaching in the liberal arts and humanities (especially) taking the classics and seeing lessons that fit our world?

There's really no reason to bulldoze your students with the idea that the "seminal texts" are that for a reason and are not to be challenged, and must be taught no matter what. In other words, the CANON (at least in philosophy) might be a dang myth, perpetuated by people who are intimidated by - or can't teach - the "classics." That's a bold statement, but I think we'd do better to think and teach in terms of a continuum, rather than a canon, or an atomistic approach dictated solely by social factors. That's my training though - the teachers who I hope to emulate have approached books - philosophical, historical, literary, or otherwise - in this way.

Anyway, it was a provocative little article.

At least Hurley liked it.

On a tip from a friend, I started looking for reviews of LOST and Philosophy. The amazon customer reviews are nice (my chapter even gets a direct mention). It appears Jorge Garcia - who plays Hurley on the show - likes the mention of his character as exemplifying Mill's Utilitarianism. Hmmm.

So much for that idea ...

We have spent the last week playing the Nintendo Wii with AV's family. I have tennis/bowling elbow. We tried other games, but tennis and bowling were more fun, faster, and captivating to watch (which is weird, I know) than the real thing ... mostly.

In more news about things I like, season five of The Wire starts on Sunday night. I can barely contain myself. We recently worked our way back through seasons three and four, and could not believe the storytelling, craftsmanship (in terms of writing, directing and acting). Even AV, champion of David Milch and Deadwood as the best show on television recanted after seeing these last two seasons. It's like a novel on television, and almost every article out there makes some kind of comparison to Dickens. That's good, because I don't read novels anymore I may as well watch them. Certain circles of mine will be horrified by that statement.

Two articles: The Angriest Man in Television; The Believer - Interview with David Simon (by Nick Hornby). Follow at your own peril, since social realism generally employs bad language.

Susan has indicated her plans to blog about her in-process thesis - I begin the research phase of mine this semester, and so I am interested in bits and pieces here and there. No New Years Resolutions (or erroneously-titled "Long-Term Projects," which faded by June last year) this year - just hopes for health, happiness, and full Intro to Philosophy courses.

Arrived

November has been quiet for a couple of reasons, not the least of which being the massive strain of work I am fighting. Six classes is too much, too exhausting, and too much grading! I have a week off, which is much needed and well-earned.

In other news, you can now find Lost and Philosophy: the Island Has Its Reasons in bookstores everywhere, as of today. A great birthday present (because really, everything that happens within one week on either side of November 26 counts as a birthday present).

Thanksgiving this year will be spent with my folks, brother, and grandma. Always a good spread of food, and of course good company. AV has perfected the brussels sprouts cooking (with bacon and high heat), and they're excellent. While I generally pride myself on being an adventurous eater, one thing (among a few, really) that I cannot abide is turkey. For some reason, I have never liked it. So I make my thanksgiving dinner from side dishes, which are aplenty - the aforementioned brussels sprouts, rice pilaf, jello with fruit in it, rolls, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and - the piece de resistance - green bean casserole.

I'm a real grinch about holidays (and here's a brief explanation of why), but I do love getting together with family and friends to sit around and eat, drink and visit. I love the visiting.

Great (?) Moments in Teaching

One thing I love about teaching philosophy is the occasional break it takes into narrative. In general, this can be dangerous and it is something I've tried to avoid. In my first semester of teaching, I received a comment on an evaluation that said "teacher tends to babble." After that evaluation, I consciously tried to remove myself and my stories (perhaps what I thought were useful illustrations) from my teaching. Lately - and motivated mainly by exhaustion - these stories have managed to creep back in. I'm not sure of their effectiveness in delivering content, but too bad! It's too late now!

Today I was discussing A.J. Ayer's "Freedom and Necessity." Ayer says that we are responsible for our actions (and have chosen freely) just in case (a) there were options from which we could choose (this elusive notion that "I could have chosen otherwise"), (b) we were not acting under pressure from some neruosis, and (c) we were not being compelled to act by any certain agent. While not all of us act compulsively - Ayer cites the kleptomaniac, who has no choice but to steal - we might be able to recognize points at which our agency (point (c) above) has been made forefit for some reason, and in such cases (c) we may not be held responsible for our actions. In order to illustrate what Ayer is after here, I told a story about my brother and sister.

When Patric(k) was a young feller, he thought once it would be a good idea to take a puff of our neighbor's smoldering cigarette. As he proceeded to take a drag, our sister Kerry walked in the room and caught him smoking the cigarette. For some unknown reason, Kerry determined she suddenly had some leverage. For the next many years anytime Kerry wanted something, she would ask Patrick to take care of it for her, "or else" ... generally under the threat of telling mom and dad that Patrick smoked that cigarette at Jo's. Many is in bold for a reason - I don't think it came to light until Patrick's early adulthood that Kerry had a cigarette over his head for fifteen or so years. In any case, this is an effective demonstration of constraint because Patrick's actions were - at least on Ayer's account - never free, as long as they were motivated by Kerry and the threat of telling. My students got a chuckle out of this story, and so they will be writing a quiz on Friday about Kerry, Patrick, and constrained actions.

Stories are also highly effective when I teach Kant's second articulation of the Categorical Imperative ("act as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end in itself, never only as means"). I always take a survey of how many students have waited tables or worked in retail - these are prime areas where an individual, a rational being with plans, projects, and goals have been used as mere means to someone else's end. In one of my ethics classes on Tuesday, this took a hilarious and unbelievably raucous turn into "what's the worst job you've ever had?" and/or "what's the worst interaction you've had with someone at work?" Some of my students who wait tables for a living educated their peers about their hourly wage ($3.64 an hour) and the consequences of not being tipped and receiving voided salary checks. Another student discussed the day in her job at the airport when a woman whose flight from Aspen was delayed threw her bags over the counter at my student's head.

Besides an extended version of the "what's worse" game ("Being Electrocuted"), Tuesday's class had an interesting unintended consequence of demonstrating why individuals should be respected - why servers should be given tips, why gate agents should be treated kindly, why you should be patient with retail employees, etc. In fact, one of my students said they would never stiff a server again, because now they have a face with the plight. Even if they didn't learn anything about Kant, at least they learned some common decency for folks in the service industry.

I refrained, I should say, from giving the "You treat your professor as mere means when ... " lecture, although I was sorely tempted. Alas, I refrained. We'll see if I can corral the conversation tomorrow.

More Misc. Mental Content

Unnerving: I've suddenly entered a phase of my life where I'm forgetting things and losing things. Neither of these two events are new when applied to wallet and keys, but books and student papers are a whole other animal. There's no "What to do when you start forgetting things" section in the Adjunct Manual.

Update: The chuckling students chuckle no longer. I do have some incessant text messagers, though. My patience with that is nearing its limit.

Result of Excogitation: Last week I was enjoying Hume. Now, after a record three weeks in a row of dealing with his high-Turbanness, I am exhausted of his meager vision of the world. Hume's favored methods of recovery from a long day of philosophizing include a pint and backgammon with friends. I might take his advice on the pint, but never on backgammon. (Right, AV?)

Misc. Mental Content

Unnerving: a pair of students who sit in the back of the class and snicker the entire time. What? Do I have something on my pants? I'm frantically checking my zipper in order to avoid an episode similar to one last semester when I went three quarters of a class with my fly open. Talk about neurosis.

Result of Excogitation: teaching Hume is fun and educational. Probably just for me, but I have such a hard time with a guy in a turban telling me that rational theism isn't epistemologically warranted.

Yesterday's News

Lilian Calles Barger has a link to another story about the dual-lives of contemporary women. I don't know that I'm qualified to post on this, since I'm not a mother or homemaker by any stretch of the imagination (need confirmation? try my macaroni and cheese). In any case, the discussion continues. Old pal Josh Byers has a response over at his blog - he's linked to it in the comments on yesterday's post, but I'm providing it here.

My own reticence to an idea like the one introduced in yesterday's post stems from experience - in a highly intellectual environment - where men continue to make claims about women's vocational status (i.e., what women should do, or what ministry opportunities are available to them) as a way of disguising claims about women's ontological status (equal, separate but equal, or just separate?). My Greek professor used to begin every semester with a speech directed at men who were uncomfortable with the idea of learning a biblical language from a woman - she encouraged them to drop and take another (male) professor.

Even in my own degree program, there were male colleagues who adhered to (and in one notable case, promoted loudly) the paradigm that women are suboordinate to men. When I pushed them on it, asking them in our "Christian Ethics and Modern Culture" class how I could expect them to ever take my ideas and work seriously, they responded with the answer, "but we affirm you." I don't know what being affirmed of my suboordinate status looks like, or how that's supposed to help my intellectual confidence. Even male colleagues who identified themselves as sympathetic to the egalitarian cause eventually dismissed the issue as an one of interpretation, rather than deep ontological status. Especially toward the end, my confidence that I would be well-received in an intellectual environment with men was shaken pretty soundly.

I should say, though, that a similar view about women and their work seems to be present in the secular academic world as well. In this case, though, shouldn't our Christian environments do a little better? Maybe that's unfair. In any case, the debate about traditionalism vs. egalitarianism in Christianity is old news in the blogosphere, and I'm not intending to fan any flames or start any arguments. Instead, I'm just trying to give some (admittedly reductive) context to why public statements emphasizing female "roles" bother me. In any case, full disclosure is done.

Fifteen to Go

This week it began in earnest. I'm teaching six classes between three institutions, and so far can't quite keep my head straight. I'm plagued with questions like,"How am I going to remember all their names?" and "What did I tell them I would do for the next class?" and "Where am I? What day is it?" I'm expecting things to settle into a rhythm, which will be good. There seem to be a lot of lists around the internets about what everyone is reading. Here's what I'm teaching:

For Intro to Philosophy (3 courses): Ruth Sample, et als, Philosophy: the Big Questions (Blackwell, 2003). This book is a collection of primary sources which I have enjoyed using so far. It's well organized, and covers a lot of ground so I'm looking forward to using it again next semester.

For Language, Logic & Persuasion (1 course): Patrick Hurley's A Concise Introduction to Logic, which isn't all that concise. But it's a good text with a lot of resources for students and instructors. I don't teach a full-on logic course - this is more of a critical thinking/critical reasoning class, so NO PROOFS.

For Ethics (2 courses): I'm back to the trusty old standbys of James Rachels' Elements of Moral Philosophy and Lawrence Hinman's Contemporary Moral Issues: Diversity and Consensus. My students are also reading primary source materials (excerpts only) in metaethics and normative theory.

Fortunately, my Ethics and LLP courses are not new preps - I have the notes already, but the new intro course is proving to be time consuming, although very interesting. It's worthwhile to teach the primary sources (since the students can get it "from the horse's mouth," as it were), and it's a good exercise for me because I have to explain Descartes' ontological argument. There's a whole post somewhere - which I've tentatively titled "Sympathy for the Devil" - about my finally "getting" Descartes. He deserves more credit than I have ever given him, but it's still too bad he was just sitting by the oven and not in the oven.

The downside of this carnage is that I had to drop the course I was taking on movies and history, but I was able to (sort of) replace it with a one-credit internship at the Starz Film Center. I'm doing research (which means I get to watch some films) and writing program notes. It may be that I get to introduce a film or two down the line, but for now I'm content to see all of what the programming end of a film studies degree is like.

This weekend I'm planning to spend cozied up with David Hume, which may prove to make my outlook on life less-than-stellar. There's a reason he played a lot of backgammon and drank his fair share of pints - it's the Enquiry. When there are no metaphysical certainties, the best thing you can do is have a Guinness (or the 18th century Scottish equivalent).

So ... probably no coffee.

I'm a mere seventeen minutes from teaching an intro to philosophy class at my alma mater. I didn't think I would be nervous, but darn it if I don't have the most raucous butterflies at this very moment. About an hour ago I was casually thinking I would need coffee. Right now, I might throw up.

More to come.

Updates and General Disgust

Update: Regular readers of this blog remember a couple of weeks ago when my computer failed while on vacation. The saga concluded this week, and happily. The lesson? Buy the extended warranty.

When we arrived back to Denver on Thursday, we took old Holmes (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. - all my electronics are philosophers) to the Apple store to drop off and see what happens. The person AV talked with over the phone was enthusiastic about the possibility of Holmes being replaced as a brand new MacBook. I was excited about this. The fellow at the Apple store was more cautious in his promises, and so Holmes went to pasture in Cupertino. On Tuesday this week, the doorbell rang and a computer showed up. I opened it to find the shell that once housed Holmes, but with brand new hard-drive, logic board, battery AND keyboard! A new computer! Maurice is up and working fine (yes, Maurice Merleau-Ponty). This is all very fortuitous, especially since this week I'm teaching Descartes and we're coming to the point where he's going to (try to) put his mind back in his body.

Update: This first week of teaching was pretty gruelling. I'm especially looking forward to next week, once all 141 of my students are in my face. The tough thing about this week is that I'm only kind of half in my work life - next week I should be able to figure out the rhythm of things.

General Disgust: The producers and geniuses at Top Chef have really done it this time. Last night, they booted off Tre, the most capable - seeming cook of them all. This is totally bunk, especially since Howie remains. The talent pool seems a little less than in previous seasons, and I suppose I'd better be steeling myself for the win by Hung, the over-confident, dangerous-with-his-knife Vegas chef (although, he did break down those chickens quickly, cleanly, and impressively last night ... he's still a jerk, though). Frank Bruni has already dismantled this challenge and all its pitfalls in his blog over at the New York Times. I agree categorically with everything he's said.

I received a funny e-mail from a former student this week, and of course it has to do with Jughead Petrelli. In MARCH last year, my student totally called the way last season of Heroes ended. He wrote me an e-mail this week to tell me that he totally called it. He wished me a nice semester. I can't WAIT for crappy television to begin again. I'm so tired of being amazed by Les Stroud and laughing at Mike Rowe. Dang.

Imagine my disappointment.

"There is no need to allege that Descartes sat in or on a stove. A poele is simply a room heated by an earthenware stove. Cf. E. Gilson, Discours de la methode: texte et commentaire, 4th edition (Paris: Vrin, 1967), p. 157." (translator's note) Donald A. Cress, n3 in the Hackett edition of Descartes' Discourse on Method.

Kent = Vindicated

Throw it and see what sticks.

When I was in high school, my english teacher illustrated the relationship between the brain and information using chicken wire and oatmeal. He threw the oatmeal at the chicken wire. Ta-daa! Knowledge. It's a surprisingly effective analogy.

In my preparation for teaching the summer course, I found myself motivated to learn more about sociobiology, the explanation of ethics from an evolutionary perspective. I think it is interesting stuff, and it provides an alternative explanation for the source of ethics - something I believe needs to be addressed in the ethics class. Anyway, it turns out that my initial reading (Michael Ruse's article, "Evolutionary Ethics" in The Blackwell Guide to Ethics) spurred more reading and research along these lines. I read David Quammen's The Reluctant Mr. Darwin - in the Norton Great Discoveries series - which presents the development of the concept of Natural Selection, both from an academic perspective and from the point of view of Darwin's personal life. I'm reading right now Bill Bryson's A Short History of Everything, which chronicles the development of major discoveries in the history and philosophy of science (this will also help me fill in some holes in my Jeopardy! preparation). Up next is E.O. Wilson's Concilience - the substantial tome on sociobiology.

The weird thing is that even when reading all of this, it still doesn't satisfy me as an adequate explanation for the things before me. Today I'm reading Bill Bryson on the porch, sitting with my husband, the Atlantic Ocean stretched out before me with hordes of people frolicking on it, and doggone it, it doesn't jive that this is all a happy accident. This piece of information actually made me just a little happy - recently I've been feeling a little (a lot?) unmoored. A little bit like I'm without convictions. This isn't true, of course, because I do have convictions ... it just happens that some of them have sunk to the lower layers in the last year.

This thinking and engaging reading incited a new ongoing project (I know, as if I need another) - I'd like uncover some of these sunken ideas from an opposite viewpoint and see what I can build. In short, throw it at the chicken wire and see what sticks. More to come.

If you're claustrophobic, don't go in there.

We've been on vacation for a week - the first week we spent in New York with the folks (a lot of fun, as always). We did not make it to a show, but did find two out of print Clusone 3 discs at the Downtown Music Gallery. A coup! AV also ate torchon of pig's head at Momofuku Ssam Bar (I had the lamb's belly). All in all, a success. We are presently enjoying the sand and sun of North Carolina, and we'll be here for a week and a half.

After the reunion (photos of people you don't know can be found here), I was feeling intellectually depleted. I should probably attribute this to my completing a full summer of brain drain at the hands of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, but in any case, for the last half of the week AV was gone at the handmade film institute until about last Wednesday I couldn't be articulate and most of my insights were about inessential things (like my nails, for example, or Harry Potter). Poor AV. He returns from a week of intellectual stimulation with what sounds like a group of very interesting people, and surprise! Your wife's an idiot.

On Thursday last week AV and I met a friend of mine at MoMA. AV and I were on a mission to see the Richard Serra retrospective. Richard Serra is a brilliant sculptor working in giant steel plates. It's pretty awesome stuff, and it's stuff you can walk around in. This proved to be an interesting catalyst for my emerging from idiocy. On the second floor there are two huge installations of Serra's work, which are pretty much like steel labyrinths. They're molded in such a way that you can't actually see what is in front of you - you're required to follow narrow the path created by the steel in order to move forward. Additionally, the steel occasionally takes a curve that requires you to bend at the waist and effect a kind of zig-zag position with your body in order to maneuver through the sections. It's engaging and kind of terrifying at once. My friend - who is a dancer by training - was explaining how the sculptures challenge the notion of "center," where movement originates from. We continually reported an off-kilter feeling as we were walking through. As we arrived at the center of one of the sculptures, something clicked in my head and I started spouting Merleau-Ponty (I'm not kidding). In an important way, Serra's work supports MP's rejection of "spatiality of position," the idea that bodies take up space according to a grid/coordinate position. Serra's sculptures confound the grid because we were forcing our bodies to move more organically than mechanically - evidence for this is in my friend WT's admission that the sculpture challenged the center.

I've been making a joke about my processing of major events lately as"clinical," meaning that I attempt to think phenomenologically through the problem - this was the case with my Gommy's recent stroke, and - much less seriously - the reunion (alter egos emerging into my perceptual field), but here's an instance when it works kind of innocuously. I wasn't expecting to experience these pieces the way that I did, and since the pieces demanded a bodily engagement instead of a mere visual engagement, my experience of them was more profound and a trigger out of my own doldrums. :)

Thursday ended up being one of the most fun days I've had at the museum in a long time - we were enjoying ourselves immensely, and I think Serra's work intimidated people enough that it wasn't crawling with individuals trying to wind their way through the pieces. Thank goodness, because having to step over people or move single file through a Serra would be a horrible experience, but an experience nonetheless.

The Reading

Drew has a nice post about what and why he reads.

I read very little fiction. In fact, the fiction I read is limited to a six book rotation before bed. Five of the novels are from my childhood. Four of these five are written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Complaints from students sound much less serious when I'm reading about a seven-month stretch of blizzards punctuated by the occasional threat of starvation.

For awhile, this was bothering me because I have long associated being intelligent and intellectually engaged with reading fiction. This connection was initially cemented in the early moments of AV and my relationship - he actually got me to read Infinite Jest (three bookmarks, people - one for the text, one for that long section on Madame Psychosis I skipped, one for the footnotes). From there I was digesting the enfants terrible of the postmodern fiction world (DFW, Eggers, DeLillo). My engagement with fiction ceased soon after that, a halt I attribute to entering graduate school. I recently talked with some of my colleagues about this fiction-less or fiction-limited life that I live, and was shocked to find that my friends - brilliant, funny, thoughtful fellows - only read mass market-type mystery novels. One said that a professor of his at U of Iowa stopped reading fiction because he was reading philosophy for a living. Tricky how that works.

This explains why Cormac McCarthy - another of AV's categorical favorites - proved so tricky for me. It's just so hard that I can't drum up the intellectual attention and respect it deserves. If anything, the fiction available that seems worth the effort is too sophisticated (here I'm not discriminating. I can get at The Road about the same as I can get at Middlemarch). Fiction paralysis probably results from my ability to digest it the way it ought to be digested.

If I'm reading anything for fun lately, it seems to be nonfiction. Favorites include Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club (which I read and marked like crazy), Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential and A Cook's Tour. I have read a few essays from DFW's Consider the Lobster, which have been satisfying. More satisfying was his piece in the New York Times last year about Roger Federer. The man can write about tennis and the mind-body problem in the New York Times ("Federer as Religious Experience," August 20, 2006). I never questioned his genius again after that. I'm planning to start Lakoff & Johnson's Philosophy in the Flesh, but that probably qualifies better as work-related reading than reading for fun. It's my equivalent of AV's hauling Pynchon to the beach (have you seen the size of Against the Day? sheesh!).

The new phonebooks will be here in November!

In the words of the immortal Navin Johnson: "I am somebody!" Here's the (non-ontological) proof. And some more, although vague.

Another Way at the Problem

This time last year I was dealing with the problem of not knowing where to go in the storied discipline in which I work. I was thinking analytic epistemology was maybe a good idea, but I wasn't sure - and to be honest, I wasn't internally committed to the idea. Something just didn't feel right about it. This uncertainty stinks, especially if you are remotely considering applying to a PhD program.

Over the last year, though, things have revealed themselves very slowly. It's only just now that I've stumbled upon a philosophical question that is interesting, fruitful, and somehow is not a total stumper (there are a lot of those in philosophy). I'm spending some time on the problem of interaction, roughly the question "How do we know there are other selves?" My independent study is focused on this question, and the way it is resolved by phenomenology (Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger). It's important, I think, that the problem is usually couched as "How do we know there are other minds?" because phenomenology is in part an attempt to recover the whole self from the mind-body problem. Even in modern philosophy, though, this question has interesting resolutions (or attempts, in particular Leibniz's shot at it is fascinating). Merleau-Ponty resolved it pretty convincingly for me last semester, but I'm working deeper with his ideas this summer.

This question has consequences for how we behave toward those others we've discovered, so there's an important way in which this question is directed toward ethics. It is also a convenient study to be doing this summer, because in the fall I'm breaking from philosophy and taking a film studies course on "Film as History." I have designs on a paper about the problem I'm studying right now and The Lives of Others, which is a movie stinking with philosophical problems. It's also an amazing film.

Part of the good thing about going back to UC-D is that I've remembered I'm the most comfortable when I'm thinking in an interdisciplinary way, and continental philosophy is (at least for me) more congenial to this pursuit. When I told her this, my undergraduate advisor said "I told you so." She's been telling me this for years.

Been There, Done That

Papers Are Due: Scot McKnight has a nice little post about an interaction with a student the day before a term paper is due. The student's response (“A couple pots of coffee and maybe a Coke or two and I’ll be fine. I’ve got all night") brings up VERY accurate memories of my college days, and in particular the days I was writing my senior honors thesis - I was subsisting on balance bars and Blue Ox energy drink, writing well from 11pm to 2am. Doesn't that sound disgusting? Pretty gross to me. In fact, I'm certain whatever nutritional value I was getting by way of the balance bar was immediately canceled out by the "taurine" in the drink. Ewww.

For the record, the last true all-nighter I pulled was for Dr. Bill Klein's summer intensive course on the Gospels and Acts. I also wrote a very good paper writing in one (very desperate, as I recall - I was negotiating with myself throughout) nine-hour shot in May of 2005. In both cases, such intensive writing was necessitated by other commitments. In the summer of 2003, I was roped into the summer conference program at Regis and was working far many more hours than I was paid for. In May of 2005, I had a very jammed finals week, and so wrote the roots of what would later become my major writing project at the Seminary in nine hours (Kant, Berkeley and Phenomenalism). There is something satisfying about being able to write something well in such a small space. This does not happen often (I can say that my paper on The Kingdom of God for Klein was okay, but my paper on Berkeley and Kant was a labor of love - does that say something about me? Probably just that I was more successful as a PR major than I was as a Biblical Studies student), but when it does, it's the height of intellectual satisfaction.

Speaking of intellectual satisfaction, I taught my last lectures for Spring semester yesterday. As a kind of wrap-up exercise in my Intro course, I asked the students to revisit the worldview diagnosis they did on the first day of class. When I asked them to respond to some of the same questions, there was a lot of chuckling - particularly of the "I had no idea that things would get so complicated" variety. I talked with a couple of my students after class, and one student said that she was initially intimidated by philosophy, but in the end she had no idea she could "be so philosophical." This comment struck me so positively, simply because a student was able to see that philosophy is accessible and might mean something on a level they didn't expect. Her friend - who launched a full scale campaign in favor of Descartes (really? Descartes?) - said that he gained so much satisfaction by seeing the way Descartes' ideas locked together. I told him that there's a lot of intellectual satisfaction to be had in reading and working through a difficult text. He enthusiastically agreed.

There's some controversy in one of the departments I teach at regarding a move to include and emphasize primary sources , as well as a three-period historical requirement in the Intro and Ethics courses. Some of the other part-time professors are frustrated because they find that students have so much difficulty understanding the primary source material that it somehow neutralizes any learning that may go on in the class. While I understand (and am readily on board with) their observations about their students, it occurs to me that teaching philosophy is *really* about teaching people how to read and how to write all over again - using things that many - if not all - of the students have never seen, in a genre of writing that is not as straightforward as the chemistry textbook they're looking at. This problem is compounded by the idea that aside from our own work in reading philosophy and writing analyses on these lines, we've learned essentially "by feel" how to teach it. It's not like there's a student teaching program in philosophy. Anyway, I don't imagine there will be much compromise on this point, and that's fine - either the department tells us what to teach, or the college (who doesn't have the same "on the ground" sensibility as other philosophy professors) will tell us what to teach, and possibly how to teach it.

This summer I'm focusing on exactly how to do this. I'm teaching an intensive 8-week ethics course that will rely mainly on primary sources (although not to the precise specifications and requirements of the department - the new program doesn't launch until Fall 2008, so we've got some time to acquiesce), and my aim and goal is to learn how to teach people to read closely. I can read closely - in fact, about half of what I do for a living involves this - but can I teach people how to do this? That's a project. In addition, I'm working on an independent study in phenomenology. I'm so fascinated by what I've been reading that my professor from the course has graciously agreed to oversee my work in this area. It's very relevant to my overall project w/r/t film and philosophy, but I need to put down some foundation first. I'm also helping to plan my 10 year high school reunion. Plus, I've chosen a new, source-heavy book for two of my intro courses, so I have to figure that out. Some outdoor volleyball marathons will no doubt make their way in as well. There are just a few projects kicking around, but I like my summers busy, I guess.

Experiencing Other People

We were in blustery Chicago over the weekend for the Easter holiday (as evidenced by the new photo at your right). More details about that to come.

For now, though, I'm getting ready for a presentation in my phenomenology class, and I'm curious to know how you would respond to the following question:

What is it like to be social?

This is not a question I'm asking because I don't know (although some of you may say "She doesn't have a social life, so that must be why she's asking us!"), but because I'm looking for some descriptions of what it is like to interact with other people. What impact do others have on you? I mean these questions in a kind of vague existential sense, but am appreciative of more specific responses.

What do you, three readers, think?